


The Flu

by AhoySailor



Series: Where We Have Come [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Dream Child, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:46:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AhoySailor/pseuds/AhoySailor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their 3-year-old son is sick, and Ronan is away</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flu

**Author's Note:**

> I have a headcanon I will believe until I die, that says Ronan created a Dream Child for them, a child that was genetically both of their’s. It makes sense though, doesn’t it? I mean, he dreamt Matthew to look like—presumably—Niall and Aurora, like he and Declan. Why couldn’t he dream a child that looked like him and Adam?

With a huff Adam fell onto the tepid buttery-soft leather loveseat, jerking the throw pillow out from behind his back and setting it on his lap. His son had been vomiting almost non-stop for the past three hours, since his crying awoke Adam at midnight.

Positioning the waste basket under Brayden’s chin. Swabbing up the vomit that had missed said waste basket. Wiping his soiled mouth. Running back and forth from his bedroom to the kitchen with sipping cups full of water. Helping him to the bathroom. Consoling the frightened toddler. Dealing with the putrid smell.

He hated that his son was crying, petrified by the alien sensation of vomiting and everything that came with it. Adam wanted to take it all away, wanted to suck out the virus, to inflict it on himself tenfold if he had to. It was infinitely unfair that parents had to watch their children suffer, stemming the natural paternal aspiration to shield him or her from everything and anything that wanted to harm so much as a hair on their head.

When Brayden had first demonstrated the indicative symptoms of the stomach flu four days ago he had taken his 3-year-old to the hospital, but the only thing the doctor had given him was the diagnosis and a recommendation on how to deal with a stomach-sick toddler. It didn’t help that his husband, Ronan, was out of state.

A few years after graduating Aglionby, when Adam was in his third year of Pre-Law at Harvard, Ronan had caught the attention of recruiters for Kenmare Racing, a NASCAR team sponsored by—and this was the selling point for the then-21-year-old—BMW Motorsport, the racing division in the manufacturing company of his beloved BMW. For the past seven years, while Adam finished his law degree and rose in the ranks of Nixon Peabody—a prestigious law firm in their town of Manchester, New Hampshire—Ronan had proven himself a valuable asset to the team again and again on the race track.

After placing in the top five throughout the racing season, he had earned a spot at the NASCAR final in Florida. Adam and Brayden were supposed to make the journey down from New Hampshire to watch, the former had even booked the entire week off from work for it. But unfortunately—they had to stay home, for their son was in no condition to travel.

The soft droning of the television accompanied by the soft flickering and warmth from the fire safely contained within the masonry fireplace began to lull Adam into the dream realm. His eyes trembled shut, sleep pulled tantalizingly at his mind, and he didn’t even realize he had given into it before he was jerked back awake by soft hands on his arm.

“Daddy,” the little voice said, sniffling. Adam’s eyes jerked open, to see the tearstained face of Brayden Lynch. In his hands he clutched Titan, a ratty old teddy bear Niall Lynch had had as a baby, passed down to Ronan, who found it packed away in the Barns before Brayden was “born.”

He was a Dream Child, produced after a conversation the couple had three years ago about adopting, and whether or not they would. According to Ronan he had dreamt of a little boy, with Adam’s dirt-colored hair and the Lynch family’s infamous azure eyes. Adam’s elegant cheekbones, Ronan’s harsh nose made softer by the influence of Adam’s own. The sharp lips both shared.

The-kid-who-would-become-Brayden opened those lips, and said, “Tibi sum.” _I am your’s._

The next morning Adam and Ronan woke to find a “newborn” baby sleeping on the former’s chest, clutching his father’s tank top in his tiny fist and the thumb of the other hand wedged in his maw. It only took Ronan another night to dream up the proper documents saying that Brayden was born in Virginia to Ronan and Adam Lynch, and they were all set.

Adam lifted the toddler onto his knee. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

He rubbed his eyes, sniffled, then nuzzled his head into his father’s neck. Adam’s grip tightened. “My tummy hurts, Daddy.”

Adam’s chest tightened. “I know, baby.” He laid his head against the top of Brayden’s, tenderly rocking him back and forth. “Do you want Daddy to rub your tummy?” He bobbed his little head, and Adam set him down beside him on the loveseat, head on the pillow, and began to rub soothing circles on his stomach clad in a striped t-shirt. Titan was gripped in his armpit.

Brayden complained about being hot, having a 102.8° temperature the last time his temperature had been taken, and Adam set up the table fan on the coffee table so that it shot cold air onto the three-year-old’s clammy skin. He threw up over the edge of the couch, just barely missing the edge of the decorative Navajo rug, while Adam rubbed his back and told him it was going to be okay.

After the vomit had been all cleaned up and Brayden given another sippy-cup—embellished with a cartoon car; a gift from Aiden Keating, founder of Kenmare Racing—of water, Adam went back to rubbing soothing circles onto his belly.

Brayden, who’s weeping had all but stopped, gave one mighty whimper, and moaned, “I miss Athair.” Athair, pronounced _AH-her_ , the Irish word for father. AKA, Ronan.

Adam sighed. “I missed Athair, too, baby.” The toddler’s face scrunched up, and he let out a noise of exasperation, tears beginning to fall from his Lynch-blue eyes.

“I want Athair, Daddy,” he sobbed.

It broke Adam’s heart. Ronan had to work, all the way down in Florida. He couldn’t very well come back early; he probably hadn’t even raced yet. Unless . . . what time was it in Daytona Beach?

“Do you want to call Athair?” Adam asked his son. 

Brayden sniffled. “Yes.”

Adam snatched the phone from where it lay on the coffee table, and dialed Ronan’s cell phone, a number he knew as well as his own. _Please pick up,_ he prayed. _Pick up, pick up, pick up . . ._

Just when he was losing hope Ronan’s sleepy voice came across the line. “Phone sex, Lynch?” He had been Adam Lynch for six years, and whenever someone referred to him as so it still made his heart skip a beat. “What are you wearing? Hope it’s something sexy.”

Adam laughed, giddy at hearing his husband’s voice. “No, that’s not why I called. When’s your race?”

Ronan yawned. “Tomorrow at noon.”

“What time is it there now?”

“Last time I checked it was four a.m.”

“How long ago was that?”

“An hour ago.”

“You better get some rest if you’re going to win for us.” Adam bit his lip.

His husband laughed. “I can’t sleep unless you’re with me.”

“Nice line,” Adam said. “Anyway, I called because Bray wants to speak to you. He’s sick, and he misses you.”

All joking disappeared from Ronan’s voice. “Put him on.”

Adam passed the crying toddler the cordless phone, holding it to his ear.

“Athair?” Brayden spoke desperately into the phone. Ronan must have spoken, because more tears ran down his rosy cheeks and he sniffled some more. “Come home.”

Ronan spoke some more, and the toddler made an exasperated noise, the sound he always made when he didn’t get his way. “But I miss you.” Sob. “I sick, and I want Daddy and Athair.”

Adam snuggled himself between Brayden’s side and the back of the couch, running his hands through the boy’s lustrous chestnut curls with one hand and rubbing his belly with the other. “Athair—” in a movement Adam recognized from the sheer number of times performed, Brayden dropped the phone onto the pillow, keeled over, and vomited into the wastebasket. Adam held onto his son in an attempt to comfort him.

When Brayden stopped and began crying again he jumped off of the couch, phone in hand, and ran to the kitchen to get him a sippy cup of water.“He just threw up again, Ronan.” He had the phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder in order to pour the water. Ronan made a noise of frustration. “I want to be there for Brayden, but . . . what can I do? I have to race in a few hours.

Adam hurried back into the living room and deposited the sippy cup into the sobbing toddler’s hands. He took it and sucked greedily. “I don’t know babe, but I got to go. See you later, and we love you.”

“. . . I love you both too,” Ronan said. “So much.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ronan is such a lovable jackass, and the only occupation I can see him as is a race car driver. As for Adam, well . . . he always seemed like a lawyer to me.


End file.
